How To Tweak Google Chrome Browser To Use Less Memory

We’re big fans of Google Chrome here, but even we admit that it can destroy a computer’s performance with alarming regularity simply by spawning too many processes during the course of a typical day of usage. If you tend to have lots of tabs open during the day, you’ll probably find your computer starts to suffer in the performance stakes, and that’s all down to the way Chrome handles itself.

See, by default Chrome will spawn a new process for each and every tab that you have open. The latest versions of Internet Explorer do the same thing, and the reasoning is actually perfectly sound. With each tab living as its own bespoke process, should that tab crash then your entire browser won’t be taken down with it. That means you won’t lose a dozen tabs all because that Flash Player crashed in the thirteenth tab that you opened. It’s clever, and it works.

But there’s a downside in that every new process Chrome spawns needs memory, and if you’re using an already memory-constricted machine, that’s not good. Luckily you can force Chrome to behave differently by appending “–process-per-site” to the command used to launch the app. After doing that, Chrome will use one process per website loaded which, in theory at least, could have quite an affect on performance.

You can check how many processes Chrome is using by opening Windows Task Manager and checking the ‘Processes’ tab. All those chrome.exe entries? They are all tabs.

So what do you need to do?

Step 1: Find the shortcut that you use to launch Chrome, whether that be on your desktop or elsewhere.

Step 2: Right-click on the shortcut and then click on ‘Properties.’

Step 3: Click on the ‘Shortcut’ tab up on top and then paste the following at the end of the ‘Target’ field as shown in the screenshot below:

–process-per-site

Step 4: Close Chrome and re-open it.

Step 5: Marvel as your machine now uses less processes than before.

Hopefully you’ll find that you have considerably less processes running now and, as a result, Chrome should be using less memory.

Nice and simple, yet affective.

Found this tip useful? Then be sure to leave us your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

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Much prefer Chrome to Safari personally. Find it faster, like the profiles, Google eco-system, etc etc.

Timmy

Finally, an article from Redmond Pie that is worth something. Nice job.

Xhanoir

remove it from system startup, and create a desktop shortcut, is the only way to use it like that, even on the launchpage of w8 isnt easy to setup like in the desktop.

Jeff Fricker

Love chrome and use profiles a lot.
Recently though it’s been using a lot more memory. Around 5gb out of 8gb.
Has been getting worse to the point I’ve started looking at other browsers again.
Can’t wait to give this a try.

James Bobo

Wow honestly I you guys have been helpful to me for the first time in years. I come back every now and again. Might start checking in more often :p I wasn’t even looking for this info, but It’s helpfull. The process-per-tab bullcrap was the reason I switched back to firefox.

James Bobo

Lmao that’s what I’m sayin!

Google User

Use a PC. Problem solved.

Hangover

using process per site doesn’t make a huge diff.. by default chrome uses one process for each tab. if we have gmail open in multiple tabs, each one uses seperate process.

process per site uses one process for all gmail open in different tabs.

using single-process makes it align with other browsers and uses only one process for all tabs irrespective of site.

J1mmy1985

That’s like saying “if you have three holes in your boat, join them up and you will only have one”

Guest

Doesn’t do crap for me, says path invalid?

Ram

Don’t copy paste it

Bruce Wayne

do i put a space after exe” ?

rspkt

Should probably clarify this is specific to Windows in the topic. 😛

Larry

didn’t work in my instance….more processes in task man than before. exact same tabs opened as before!

Diego Silvera

And what about linux?

olanski

well, this process actually uses more memory when i opened and checked Task Manager. go see it yourself.

Kingu Prima

what about mac ?

Änťhöný Mãļďîtő

too bad it didnt work for me.. ;-(

David Capettini

No “shortcut” tab. Windows 7/64

Elaina Sandoval

didn’t work for me. it still uses a lot of memory….

Thinkingcaveman

I own a PC and I am reading this a year after you wrote it and your comment still reads like you’re a SRD (self-righteous Dick)